


London

by Ladycat



Series: Hustler'verse [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Porn, Possessive Behavior, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:46:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They go clubbing. They’re still doing the tourist thing, grateful to those slate-grey clouds above head that allow Spike mobility during the day, but at night, they go clubbing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London

Xander’s been to London before. He’s familiar with the bone-chilling wetness that seeps into everything, no matter that it’s snow that dots along the ground. The skidmarked sky is familiar to him, lines of different greys competing to form a Monet like picture without the unifying theme. The smell of acid rain mixing with that sickly attractiveness of petrol clings to everything, forgotten after mere moments in its presence. London is a city like any other city, a realization that’s taken Xander all his adult life to deduce, but he knows cities now. He’s familiar with their heart beat, their breath, the surreptitious cough that throws everything out of whack for that one precious moment.

Spike makes it different.

Spike makes everything different, glowing with his own special light that creates shadows and haloed glare that wasn’t there two seconds before. He’s studied disinterest when they visit the palace, suavely sophisticated and so _British_ that he makes the eye-rolling locals look like country hayseeds. Xander figures this will set the tone, influence the way Spike will look at all their London adventures—until he mentions that Willow thinks they should go to the museum. The switch is thrown, Spike turning into a beaming twelve year old, grabbing Xander’s hand and half-dragging him to the building. The sooner to see exhibits the Spike of years before would’ve dusted himself over rather than admit to being interested in.

He’s like the sun, Xander thinks as he laughs and mocks and watches with the obsessive need Spike is fully aware of. Only there’s no danger of cancer or sunspots or blindness from staring at it directly for too long.

It takes Xander a couple days, but after they do all the purely touristy things—a vampire docent in the Tower of London takes it to newer and scarier places—Xander finally begs and pleads and promises enough, and Spike relents.

“Really want to, do you?” He’s leaning against the wall in the men’s section of Harrod’s, unconsciously—or maybe even consciously—mimicking the pose of the well-dressed mannequin beside him. The sculpted lines of Spike’s body, subtly enhanced by clothes more expensive than anything sold in this store, attract attention. Xander’s had training in this, though, and has learned to ignore it. Mostly. “Think it’ll be fun?”

“Am I thinking fun like the clubbing we’re still doing tomorrow night? Maybe not. Am I thinking general fun, since it’s something I want and you’re giving it to me? Yes.” Xander’s learned not to be shy, either, and steps right up into Spike’s personal space as if he has every right to be there. Which he does. Tilting his chin up and to the side, he makes his eyes big and his lips crumpled and soft. “Please?”

Spike’s totally into his studied indifference, not so much submitting to Xander’s touch as deigning to grant him unfortunate access. At least, that’s how he looks. Xander knows better and curls his fingers around Spike’s wrist, thumb rubbing against a vein that shouldn’t be so blue, knowing exactly what that does to his lover. Two seconds of petting and Spike nods, once, and Xander pretends he didn’t see the width of Spike’s eyes or the way that always makes him look vulnerable. “Fine. Gonna buy me something pretty here first, aren’t you?”

It takes them an hour to extricate themselves from the store. There’s the picking of gifts, choosing if they belong to the two of them or to other people, and the inevitable crowd of attendees, all desperate to help and perhaps even touch this blond god in their store. Xander keeps his arm through Spike’s the entire time. It doesn’t deter anyone.

Outside, Spike’s back in bouncy mode, which suits Xander fine. He knows it’s a shield, but that’s okay because he needs one too. He wants to do this, wants to see and touch and taste the grit that’s buried deep in Spike’s skin, but the anticipation of finally _doing_ it is intense. They don’t talk much as they go from tube to train to their own two feet, skirting patches of snow and ice with the ease of men who’ve lived in a northern climate for at least a few years.

The building they end up is nondescript. It’s a building. It has building-like properties, which Xander could probably go on at length about if asked. But no one does, and Xander tries to figure out what is important besides the bricks and mortar and support beams and hundreds of years of wear and tear.

“This is where it started,” Spike says, so low that the thud of feet and steady honk of traffic on the major drag not far from here almost overwhelms it. Almost. Xander’s sure he could hear Spike’s words with his skin, if his ears somehow missed it. “All of it.”

Xander looks back at the building a few steps up from the sidewalk, trying to see it the way it was a century and more before. “Was this. . .” He wants to ask if this was Spike’s home. Did William grow up here, become a man here, play games here? But the word ‘home’ keeps getting stuck in Xander’s throat. He can’t say it, can’t even _think_ of anywhere being Spike’s home except with him.

“It was a party. Not the kind you lot have, now a days. This was different.” 

There’s a light in Spike’s eye that he doesn’t like. It makes Xander’s stomach clench and buyer’s remorse suffuses him. “That party.”

Spike nods, the set of his jaw communicating gratitude. He’s told Xander everything—no secrets, not anymore—but seeing it like this is different. And suddenly Xander _gets_ it. Really gets it. The strange set of Spike’s shoulders, expensive material hanging at funny, uncomfortable angles, the taste of the air that’s probably so different from when Spike stood here, waiting to get a glimpse of the thing he wanted most when he was William and foolish and a bit of a wet blanket, Spike’s words.

“You know what?” Xander says loudly. “I haven’t been to an authentic English pub yet. The kind that isn’t in Zaguts or Lonely Planet or whatever guides you wacky British have. I want something that a bloke from London’s gonna go to when he wants a pint and some crisps.”

There’s a moment when the world holds still. Metaphorical clouds shift and shudder, chess pieces tremble as their commander decides the next plan of attack. And then everything stills, goes quiet, and Xander’s lungful of London smog is fresh as a mountain stream.

“Love, don’t say ‘crisps’,” Spike tells him, threading his arm through Xander’s and tugging him down the street. “And don’t say ‘bloke’. It’s disturbing, listening to you mangle perfectly sensible words.”

“I’m not mangling them.”

“You’ve got sodding marbles in your mouth, Xander. It’s depressing. And the way you flatten your vowels.”

“Yeah, yeah, says the man who’s perfected Mockney.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know—”

“Tell it to someone who hasn’t listened to a drunken Giles bitch about it, Spike.”

They grin at each other, loon matched to perfect loon, and almost skip as they head for the first authentic pub Spike can remember.

The next few days pass better, though Xander can’t quite let go of the unease he felt standing before Spike’s past, bigger than life and reeking faintly of sewage blocked up somewhere nearby. He knows what Spike is, knows it in a way that not even Buffy can attest to, because he’s seen it. Good days and bad, each mask is used and dropped in his presence until the softer, gooey underbelly is exposed and all the words Spike’s bottled up through the decades come tumbling out. He thinks of himself as a therapist, sometimes. Spike’s therapist, even though that word is wrong, making too-tight skin shiver on his bones. The word he really wants to use—words, two words, and he can almost hear the bells crying in the distance—makes his heart ache.

All he knows is that Spike has given him a gift, through their relationship. He’s given Xander a key, shown Xander where the lock is—and stays silent as Xander twists the metal in his grasp, snapping off teeth until it’s nothing but a mangled piece of scrap.

Well. Maybe not _that_ dire. But when it’s dark and quiet and the wrongness of the past few days rattles in his throat, acidic and frothy, that’s what he feels.

They go clubbing. They’re still doing the tourist thing, grateful to those slate-grey clouds above head that allow Spike mobility during the day, but at night, they go clubbing. It starts out as a one time thing—Spike may adore the loud and the beat and the sweat and the move, but Xander doesn’t. Not anymore. Middle-aged man cuts a very frayed rug and Xander doesn’t need youth and the kind of innocence he’s pretty sure he’s never had thrown into his face. But Spike loves it, and they go, and Xander discovers something he’s pretty sure Spike’s known all this time. Something his younger self knew and forgot to impart to the older, wiser version.

Clubbing is anonymous. It’s _safe_.

Sure, there’s sweat and music deadening already dying nerves, bodies bouncing into his with the force of sledge hammers, and stupid, skinny little tweenies that manages to cover all shapes and sizes and races and ages, united within their hostility to Older, Suited Guy, who happens to be dressed in Spike’s finest and looks almost as punked out as they do. There’s flirting and grinding and a million and one chances to dance with someone, all there for the taking.

But you don’t have to take it. And they don’t.

They start out dancing together that first night, attracting all kinds of attention that only shines a spotlight on the wrong. Their moves look fluid and slick, two bodies knowing the other intimately, but it’s off. There’s a stutter step, a hesitation they both feel like knives under their skin, and after two or three songs, they separate. Don’t find each other until one of them wants to go.

It sets the stage and by the third night, they aren’t going clubbing together the way Xander’s always wanted to do and never did. They’re going alone, for their own needs, and just happen to share cabs there and back again. Seconds into that throbbing, mind-numbing beat Xander vanishes, takes himself out of the main paths to find a space he can dance and groove and generally make a fool out of himself in the peace and quiet of his own head. He tells himself not to look for Spike, not to care where Spike is. He drinks until he’s verging on shit-faced, because that’s anonymous and alone and safe, too, and sometimes when he’s drunk enough, he manages to keep his eyes from Spike for more than thirty seconds.

Most nights he doesn’t.

He knows Spike knows he’s watching. Spike struts for him the first night, intentionally toying with girl after boy after girl, obviously playing to anyone that wasn’t hormone-blitzed and twenty-two. It stops being playing by the second night, and Xander watches while Spike twines himself cat-close to a pretty boy with a shock of bright blue hair done up in points. They aren’t kissing, yet. Spike doesn’t go that far, but Xander knows that it’s only a matter of time. It’s not that he thinks Spike will leave him—he knows Spike won’t. Spike doesn’t, not unless he’s thrown out. But he also knows that he won’t keep Spike, not if Spike wants to go.

The writhing mass of radioactive lead in his belly tells him maybe, just maybe, Spike does.

He’s not the oldest at the club by far, but it still comes as a shock when Spike drops the blue-hair boy for a much older man. Much older. Older than Xander, even, with hair going from grey to white, with only an occasional nod at light brown. He’s tall and thickly built, obviously a former athlete of some kind, and his attitude fairly screams corporate exec. He’s dressed as one of the kids, but it’s the aura of him that does it. Power and arrogance and the total certainty that all he has to do is snap his fingers and it’s his. He knows this, because he’s made _certain_ of it.

Xander hates people like that. He’s worked all his life for them, worked until he doesn’t _have_ to work for them anymore. He hates the easy appearances they keep up because he knows it hides backstabbing effort and shady deals in shady alleys, broken careers littered in their wake, and Xander prefers those who sweat hours of life instead of the kind of slithering control-freaks that are in the upper echelon of every company he’s ever worked in.

The music is thunder-loud, throbbing through his body and bringing none of the numbness Xander needs. This is different. This isn’t a little kid, toyed with for the sake of making Spike feel young and powerful again.

This is a trick.

He’s on his feet before he knows it, energy surging through him until his vision goes splotchy. Kids cry out as he shoves past them, a few sounding appreciative, but Xander ignores all of them. He can’t hear, he can’t think, because his eyes are glued to two pairs of lips that grow huge and defined and he can read every last word they shout to each other.

_“Spike! Never thought I’d see you here in London. I thought you said you never wanted to come back here!”_

Spike’s smile is mysterious, persona firmly in place, and Xander has to throttle back the urge to scream and kill and mutilate. He’s forgotten how _fake_ Spike looks this way, sneer and bluster and dusty dry clay that’ll shatter at the slightest touch. This is _wrong_ , all wrong, and Xander can’t get there fucking fast enough.

_“Things change, mate. How’s the record business coming, then? Sign any interesting bands?_

It hits him, a chasm of ten feet away from the dancing couple, that Spike knows this man. That they’ve met before, probably had sex before, dirty money staining both their palms, and Xander wonders why the hell people aren’t diving out of the way because he’s pretty sure he’s growling and a half second away from killing the next person who comes up to him and asks if he’s a daddy looking for a boy.

 _“Doin’ fine, like always,” the exec says, shark-grin scarily like a vampire seconds from a kill. “So, I wondered since you were in town. . .” Fingers, wandering; bad, evil fingers hook their way into Spike’s belt loops and pull his hips closer, head dropping so that it’s hard to read the words. Xander knows them anyway. “You know, you don’t look a day older than the last time. Still so damned hot. Are you still as good in bed? But you’re here with someone, of course. I understand.” His mouth moves in closer, but by now, Xander can_ hear _the words. “Whatever your going rate is, I’ll triple it.”_

Xander’s world combusts.

The exec is five feet away by the time his vision clears, holding a bleeding nose while a crowd gathers around. Even the music is helpfully lowered, the human need to shout _fight, fight, fight_ kicking in faster than the bouncers. “Get away from him,” Xander snarls, hand clamped around Spike’s wrist so tightly bones creak. “You don’t _touch_ him.”

Blood makes him look even more like a vampire, the arrogant sneer familiar as breath to one who’s seen the master, _slept_ with him, seen him stand in all his bleached glory, so certain that the world is his for the taking because he’s done it time and again. “Is this who you’re with?” the exec asks, blood in his throat making his voice raw, intensifying the disdain. “What’s he pay you, huh? I’ll _square_ it.”

“Oo, wow. Squaring it, that’s so much bigger than doubling or tripling or even quadrupling,” Xander mocks. He hasn’t turned around, can’t, because he knows he’ll see everything in Spike’s eyes. “You go to special lessons on how to buy a hooker? Or is buying it the only way you _can_ get some?” The exec’s face contorts, but Xander doesn’t care. He knows he can take this asshole, knows he won’t have to because the bouncers are closing, and because pretty soon Spike will make his choice. It’s the last that sends the words tumbling from his mouth. “Go pick up some of the skanks outside, they look like they could use a couple grand, and you don’t come _near_ my boyfriend again. Get me?”

Scattered applause bursts out, and then the bouncers are there. They don’t care who started what, or that the exec start screaming that he’ll never come back here or bring his custom with him. The club isn’t hurting for funds, and with the rumor of the fight, the owner’s secure. Everyone is hustled outside, though one of the bouncers is smart enough to shove the exec out a different exit than the one Xander and Spike are pushed through.

Night air wraps around them like a blanket, muffled after the noise of the club. Lights blind their eyes, but Xander can’t see anyway. All he knows is that his hand has dropped from Spike’s wrist, they have maybe five minutes before the exec comes back for payback, and Spike hasn’t chosen yet. He’s just standing there, thoughtful and closed off, and that’s almost as bad as whatever the answer will be. Because Xander’s forgotten just how many walls used to separate Spike from the rest of the world and he’s fucking _shattered_ the only key he’s ever had.

The silence stretches, taffy-long, thin and impenetrable and Xander abruptly sighs. He’s not a sixteen year old anymore and he’s always known that his life with Spike is temporary. “I’m going back to the hotel,” he says, tracing patterns of things he doesn’t want the name of next to his shoes. “Come with?”

The hands on his shoulders are a shock, lights flaring behind his eyes as his shoulders hit rough brick seconds before lips slam onto his. Alcohol is sweet and bitter on Spike’s tongue, but it’s desperation that he tastes most prominently, desperation and need and a sense of relief that’s so powerful that Xander knows he could come just from the taste of it. But that’s not what he wants, so he reigns his body in and kisses back, sucking and biting and shoving his heat into Spike as far as it will go.

He has no memory of when they change positions. All he knows is there is cool air teasing his balls, and Spike is whimpering as his back is scraped raw, fingers clawing at his shoulders, his shirt, his neck. There’s blood in the air, but Xander can’t smell anything but their own rut. He fucks Spike with abandon, shoving his cock deeper and deeper, wanting more, always fucking _more_ —and then he stops.

Spike wails, sightless eyes opened wide, shining in reflected light. “Nuh!” he cries, unable to make it the full ‘no’ Xander knows he means. “Xan!”

Xander waits until Spike stops panting, until his head drops, and the now-familiar uncertainty reappears. Spike is watching Xander warily. The words are tumbling in his brain, possession and confusion and cliches so overdone he cringes at the thought of them, but needs to finally say them. He can’t. All he can do is stare, and want, and pray with a desperation he’s never had before that Spike will just know, the way he always does. The way he always _did_ until three days ago, standing in front of a house that held everything of William and not one iota of the man he is now.

When Spike leans forward to kiss him again, it’s a benediction. Hands full of rough brick and silk-smooth skin suddenly grasp a key, that elusive key, again, glowing with a light Xander doesn’t need to look at to see. There’s no sex in their kiss, despite Xander still balls-deep in Spike’s body. There’s no resignation, no masks, no hiding.

“Boyfriend?” Spike asks, lips pulled bare millimeters away. “Husband’s more appropriate, I guess.” He licks his lips and Xander’s, settling back in for a kiss that heats them both in a way sex never has, and never will. “But lover, now. Lover’s got a better ring. Think you can use that from now on?”

Xander dimly remembers passing the exec as they find a cab. He remembers grinning at the man and dumping a few hundreds on his bleeding, sweaty face, and saying thank you. He knows he heard Spike’s laugh, reveling in both the mockery and the joy. What he really remembers, though, is tumbling into a cab with Spike in his arms, certain now that he’d never leave. The final piece clicks into place, the last clue revealed, and Xander knows that he isn’t holding a key anymore. He’s holding _Spike_.

“Lover,” Xander tells him, over and over. “My lover, my love, mine, my lover.” The words are jumbled, almost frantic, but Xander knows that each one is savored, fine wine on a sophisticated palate. He won’t—can’t—stop saying them. Doesn’t want to.

The cabby grins as they clamber out of the cab, wrapped around each other so tightly that their feet have no where to go. “Ah, young love,” he says, party mocking, but his grin is thoroughly appreciative.

“Nah,” Spike says, leaning in for a kiss that makes Xander whimper and pant with need. “Old love. Best kind, that.”


End file.
